


kinda like kidnapping!

by 1989



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: (verbal & a lil physical), Angst and Fluff, Child Abuse, Drug Abuse, Gaslighting, Gen, dadvid, eventual adoption, it's sad in the beginning but then david saves the day, max is eleven, welcome to trauma hour with your hostess with the mostest: 1989!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 03:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1989/pseuds/1989
Summary: "David quickly pulls out of my neighbourhood, and I duck my head down until we reach the freeway in case there's anyone familiar lingering outside. What David's doing looks SUSPICIOUSLY akin to kidnapping, and I'd rather not wake up the next morning to my phone buzzing with an Amber Alert reading my name and "pasty white man with red hair" as the possible abductor."In which David takes Max away from his abusive household, because this kid really needs a break.





	kinda like kidnapping!

**Author's Note:**

> wow we stan cathartic fanfics 
> 
> i think i should clarify that max's mom is high on morphine. i know a lot of people tend to think of weed whenever they see "high", buuut it's not that here haha. sorry if this is ooc, the first half w his mom is completely based on real life & i tried to characterize max closer to himself without changing the dialogue too much but idk how well it came out. a+ for effort i guess

We're sitting in the car, stationary at a red light. The silence beckons to be filled with useless, forced conversation that's doomed to be forgotten within an hour. Words that say nothing but ultimately mean everything. 

I, of course, remain silent. Small talk isn't my forte, and I'd rather catapult head first off a skyscraper than make nice-nice with her at the moment. 

"I don't understand why you treat me this way." 

I almost roll my eyes, but pause to truly take in the words that broke through the air. Treat her  _what_ way, exactly? Can anything be considered mistreatment if it's in self defense? 

Apparently, because she continues on a tangent rather than waiting for an answer. It's probably the wisest decision, because I wasn't planning on giving her one. 

"You disrespect me after  _all the things_ I've done for you. I've raised you by myself." 

You see, raising a child on your own requires being  _alone._ Pretending your spouse doesn't exist doesn't mean they haven't contributed at least somewhat, regardless of how negatively. 

"I don't understand why you want to pretend there's something wrong with my behaviour. Don't you trust me, Maxwell?" 

There's the million dollar question! 

I'm sure there was a time that I did. When I was younger, I relied on her to feed me, clothe me, bathe me. I suppose there's some semblance of trust involved in expecting someone to protect you, but it's not voluntary. Who else was I supposed to look to?

I think my refusal to speak indicates my answer clearly enough, but she continues to push.

"Be honest with me. I promise it won't hurt my feelings."

That's an outright _lie._ We're having this conversation (or, she's talking at me) because I "hurt her feelings" by being brutally honest.

"Yes," I say finally through my teeth, crossing my fingers underneath the seat.

"You're lying." No shit _,_ Sherlock, you  _want_ me to. I'll never comprehend why she insists upon escalating the situation. If I gave her the answer she wanted, why can't she drop the issue? It's as if she's unable to let it go until she's drained every last bit of patience from me until I'm kicking and screaming like a toddler so she can victimize herself again. 

"Have I done  _anything_ to make you mistrust me?" She asks like an exasperated mother who's child is a terror despite how well she raised them- which, I realize with a hint of humor, she very well may be in her twisted version of reality. 

I begin internally listing off drug names for specific reasons why I mistrust my mother, but she interrupts my train of thought with her own pointless rambling. 

"God, you're such an ungrateful brat sometimes. I was there when your shithead of a father neglected you, and _this_ is how you treat me in return?"

I still fail to see the way I'm treating her. She's the one antagonizing me, while I've only said one word the entire car ride.

We're approaching our driveway, and I can feel her eyes boring into the back of my skull from where I'm staring out the passenger window.  She eventually catches on that I'm never responding and sighs heavily as she allows her attention to fall back to the road. 

Well, as much attention one can manage when high, at least. 

"Fine," she mutters as she parks sideways, gripping the gear shift as tightly as I imagine she'd like to be around my neck. Even though she's struggling to walk, I refuse to help and instead linger behind as we exit the car. I roll my eyes as she leans over drunkenly and fumbles with the keys. It takes a whole two minutes before the door is open, in which I was seriously contemplating jumping into the traffic outside our yard, but she somehow manages to get the door unlocked and stumble inside. Incredible. 

I sometimes think she should be awarded the Guinness World Record for being the most capable intoxicated person alive. She's been at it for upwards of a decade and can still somewhat operate a motor vehicle, with only two DUI's under her belt! It's truly an accomplishment. 

"You can go pack your bags and move out with your father if you hate me that badly," she says as we enter before I can bolt to my room, lock the door and shove on headphones to drown out the sound of her yelling and throwing things. Honestly, her suggestion almost sounds good; at least he'd leave me the fuck alone. 

"I'm tired of putting up with your shit, Max," she slurs, slamming the front door and either missing or flat out ignoring the way it makes me jump. 

"You're..." I force out despite how little I want to participate in this ridiculous fight. Maybe she's right about me! Maybe I am an unbearable terror because, even though I want nothing more than to walk away, I can't let her get away with saying that. 

"You're tired of putting up with  _my_ shit? I've dealt with this for the past ten fucking years, and  _you're_ the one who's tired?!" 

She seems momentarily stunned and I relish in some sick sense of pride that I can finally have the upper hand, but she opens her mouth yet again and ruins any chance of that ever coming to fruition. "It has  _not_ been ten years," she says with so much conviction that I might believe her if I hadn't personally lived through it. 

"Yes it has been!" I practically scream, any chance of keeping my composure thrown out the window. "One of my first memories is of you picking me up from kindergarten and swerving into a mailbox because you were too fucked up to drive! You're fucked up right now!" 

"You're  _wrong,_ " she snarls, and it would be hilarious that she's openly denying being high when her eyes are bloodshot and glossy if the circumstances were different. "You know the things your father has done? The drugs he tried in college?" 

Once again, deflecting the blame onto someone else! My mother's favourite tactic in any argument! She loves bringing my father up even in situations he wasn't remotely involved in in order to shift the responsibility from herself to him. 

It worked when I was an impressionable, naive kid. Not so much anymore. 

"Your father isn't perfect either, Maxwell. He used to  _beat_ me. He'd take a baseball bat and-" 

No, no,  _no,_ I don't need to hear this for the hundredth time. I plug my ears and pace on the small expanse of carpet below, chanting "shut up" over and over like a mantra, gradually growing louder as she does. She's only doing this for sympathy, to guilt me into siding with her, it doesn't matter- 

"Maybe you fucking _deserved_  it!"

I don't know if I meant it or not. It felt great to explode in that instant, but I definitely regretted it when an open palm smacked against my cheek so hard that the noise echoed off the thin walls of our shitty house. 

"Go kill yourself!" She spat directly in my face, her eyes overflowing with rage. "You two faced, backstabbing cunt!"

I stumble backwards before bolting out of the room, nearly losing my footing in the process. Her words sting, but no where near as badly as the hot pain that seeps across my face and digs into my skin like needles. 

My feet carry me to my room on autopilot as if trying to escape the expletives she's still shouting in my direction from the living room. I pointedly slam the door louder than she had earlier and collapse onto the bed once I'm certain it's locked. 

I don't know what I'm feeling. 

There's a flurry of emotions swirling in my gut and threatening to break free with each sharp intake of breath, and simultaneously... nothing at all. I've been through this song and dance so many times that my reaction almost feels rehearsed, like it's been engrained in my muscle memory after so many years. 

I don't know what to do other than cry. 

My body shakes as I let out a wet sob that had been bubbling in my throat, making me reach for my bear to curl in on for some sense of comfort. I tighten my arms around his body and bury my face in his fur to silence the sound, which doesn't prove to be very successful, yet I continue to cradle him as I rock back and forth. It takes a few minutes of choking on air and swiping at the tears burning my corneas before I realize this isn't working in the slightest. 

Maybe I don't  _want_ it to. Part of me wants to wallow in a blubbering, pathetic puddle of my own self-pity until someone else comes to (literally or metaphorically) slap some sense into me. 

I'm just so fucking  _exhausted._

The thought that I should just do what my mother told me to crosses my mind for a split second, but how little I want to please her overpowers how much I feel like dying. 

With shaky hands, I pull my phone out of the pocket sewn into my jacket and messily type in the password. I ignore the multiple missed calls from Nikki and Neil and scroll down further to find the contact I'm searching for, frantically pressing it once it's found and holding the phone to my ear. 

Each ring makes my heart rate increase in fear that it'll go to voicemail; it's nearly thumping out of my chest by the fourth, but the merciful click that comes afterwards fills me with relief. 

"Max? Is something wrong?" David asks as soon as he picks up, and the fact that he cares enough to realize I wouldn't call at 8:30 on a Friday without good reason is almost enough to make me sob harder. 

"I can't," I choke out, the proverbial dam breaking lose. "I can't live here anymore, I fucking hate it. I- I want a parent who's responsible and gives a shit about me, not someone who does drugs and hits me and calls me names, I-" I gasp for air that feels unattainable. "I hate her so much David, I can't."

"Shh," David shushes, almost inaudible over the sound of me crying. To his credit, there's not much you can do to calm a blubbering child from miles away. "Are you safe right now?" He asks softly after a moment of just me sniffling into the receiver.  

"I guess. She hasn't come into my room yet."

David is silent on the other end for a brief moment, the only sound coming from the faint jangling of keys and a door being unlocked. "Max," he speaks again, his tone suddenly ten times more serious than it'd been a minute ago. "I'm fully prepared to come pick you up if you need me to. We'd have to go to the police first thing in the morning, but I've been going through a... program that would almost ensure you'd be put into my care, and not a random foster home. Are you alright with that?" 

I swallow. That's a lot to process, but I'd rather be raised by carnivorous wolves than my mother. David seems like a better alternative, too. 

"Yeah," I respond quieter than intended. 

"Okay, buddy. Pack some things you want to bring along and I'll be there within twenty."

The second the call ends, I grab my backpack and carelessly shake its contents onto the floor. It doesn't cross my mind that I may never come back here again and might need my school supplies in the near future- I'm too excited over the prospect of getting the fuck out to take much else into account. 

I shove in as many clothes that'll fit along with my teddy bear, phone charger and a spare blanket. Before leaving, I also drain my mother's last pack of beer down the sink and discard it on the floor as a final 'fuck you'. It doesn't feel like a grand enough gesture, but I guess running away in the middle of the night with a random adult suffices. 

Just as David's about to arrive, I pad back into the living room to make sure she's in her room and too distracted to notice me leave. The bedroom door is cracked open, and peering inside I can see her passed out on the bathroom floor. The cheap linoleum is like a second bed to her whenever she's high. I don't bother to check if she's breathing. 

David pulls up a minute later, blinking his headlights to signal that he's here like I hadn't been waiting at the window for him. I quietly close the door behind me and lock it with the spare key underneath the mat my mom made after I learned how to steal her keys and lock her out at around seven years old. 

As I climb into the passenger side, David gives me a once-over as if assessing any visible bodily damage, then quickly replaces his look of concern with a warm smile that matches the temperature of the car. "Here." He thrusts a thermos into my hands after I pitch my bag into the back. "Sorry, it's hot chocolate. I don't drink coffee at home," he says, his smile turning sheepish. As if getting hot chocolate instead of coffee was the absolute worst thing that had happened to me today. 

"It's okay," I respond and take a huge gulp, even though it's beyond okay. I've been transported from hell on Earth to the magical land of David's PT Crusier, where pop music blares from the stereo and adults actually give a shit about your wellbeing. It's probably the closest to heaven that I'll ever be. 

David quickly pulls out of my neighbourhood, and I duck my head down until we reach the freeway in case there's anyone familiar lingering outside. What David's doing looks  _suspiciously_ akin to kidnapping, and I'd rather not wake up the next morning to my phone buzzing with an Amber Alert reading my name and "pasty white man with red hair" as the possible abductor. 

Once we're a mile, or two, or three away from my house, I begin to feel a bit odd. The last time I was in David's car he was taking me home from camp because my mother forgot, and now he's taking me away from my home. It's... it's a lot to take in, and I'm too tired at the moment to try to. 

David leaves the radio on low volume as he drives down the road (without hitting any mailboxes, I note with a vague sense of gratefulness). I prop my legs onto the dashboard, even though he's told me countless times that my knees will go straight into my eye sockets if we get into a wreck. I think David's capable enough not to get us into a freak car accident. 

I trust him enough. 

"David..." I say as I feel my eyes beginning to grow heavier, my voice hoarse from crying and lack of use. 

"Yes, Max?" He glances at me for a quick moment to show he's paying attention before looking back towards the road. 

"Uh, I... thank you," I blurt out as quickly as possible. "For the hot chocolate, I mean." 

David smiles back like there was something I was thanking him for other than the drink- which there obviously was, but he could at least pretend like he didn't understand for my sake. 

"You're welcome, kiddo." He releases one hand from the wheel to mess with my hair. "Anything for you." 

I turn my head to the side so he can't see me smile and drift off somewhere in between there and his house. 

**Author's Note:**

> the "program" dave mentioned is him going through the process of becoming a foster parent bc he knows max has a bad home life and wanted to foster him. my.... angel 
> 
> umm yeah i know i literally have ten abandoned projects, why do i think it's okay to write random shit?? who knows, hope you liked this anyways. comments give me my own david who can take me away from this hellhole (lol that's kinda dark sorry)


End file.
